[stamped, THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT JAN 11 1984]

12/29/83

Dear Josh,

I marvel at how you keep up with the "literature."

There may be something interesting in the Kada paper, but I doubt it. If coli and subtilis from any inocula exhibited the
effect one might think seriously about a surface interaction that caused leakage (or excretion of a bacteriocin, etc.) But
they had to take inocula from only certain kinds of rich media. Since their cultures were fully grown, and were moving from
rich to minimal, there would have to be a lot of derepression, and I can imagine that imbalance during that period might cause
slight excretion, despite feedback inhibition. Also, they carried over nutrients with their large, unworked [?] inocula --
which might explain dependence on certain media.

If I were to pursue this (which I won't) I'd try growing cells, worked [?], as inocula.

I don't know of any theoretical treatment of syntrophism. Martin Alexander, working with mixed cultures and trying to
simulate natural conditions, might be closest, but his seminar here last year did not come out with any clean and interesting
mechanisms.

Incidentally, I'll become Emerities [sic] next year and will be teaching for the winter in Micea [?] at Berkeley. Also
incidentally, I had a good exchange of letters and conversation with Blobel last spring -- I think his SRP work fully justified
election to the NAS, and I was glad to see him get in. My earlier objection was based on an effort to evaluate the history
of the field accurately, and not on his style.